WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: POOL C - UNITED STATES VS COLOMBIA

March 15, 2023

Kyle Schwarber

Chase Field

Team United States

Pregame Press Conference

Q. Someone pointed out that you might be the only one in baseball history to hit a home run in every single round plus a WBC and everything else. How many of those baseballs do you have?

KYLE SCHWARBER: Not many of them. I think I've got some from Chicago. But not many. But that's a pretty cool stat. So I think it's going to be more something that will click whenever you're done. To me, I'm just a take it day-by-day kind of guy. Go from there.

Q. Having played in every round in the postseason, what does this feel like? Does this feel like the division series round, World Series or LCS?

KYLE SCHWARBER: I think the more that we keep going, the more that you'll see probably a little bit more intensity from the fans, things like that. But these games all mean a lot. So these are all playoff games for us.

So just gotta take it a day at a time. But the atmosphere has been great. You add a different characteristic -- I don't know if that's the best way to say it -- but you add extra -- I'm trying to think the best way to say it. You're wearing USA across your chest. It's different.

And I think it's different in a good way. Getting these at-bats here, getting to play in these types of games before the season is going to start. It's pretty cool.

Q. Have you heard from Mike Trout? He was saying in camp the other day it's killing him not to be with you guys?

KYLE SCHWARBER: You mean Bryce?

Q. Bryce, yeah.

KYLE SCHWARBER: I think we all wish that he was here. One of the best players in the game for a long time. And we all wish he was here.

It's unfortunate, but he's been tuning in, watching. But we can't wait to get back to see him, see him healthy and get back out there on the field.

Q. Somebody wrote that this is October baseball in March. What's your take on that?

KYLE SCHWARBER: I think it's true. When you can get these types of at-bats, these types of games, these fields, you're going to step into that Opening Day -- Opening Day is Opening Day. There's always going to be the butterflies there.

But as you keep progressing into the season, you're going to have those high-leverage -- those butterflies already -- they've been there. You can kind of manage it and manage the way you're going to go into those first couple of games and throughout that first month.

Q. You are a homeboy from Chicago. Darvish has been pretty good in this tournament. Have you talked to him recently, or how do you see the performance?

KYLE SCHWARBER: I haven't got to talk to Yu. Last time I talked to Yu was in the playoffs. But knowing him, he's excited to be pitching for his country. And the way he's been performing it's pretty good.

So I think that he's going to be going out there against, I think he's going to be pitching against Israel coming up. That's going to be a fun one to watch. I know that we've got a mutual friend on Israel. Good to catch up and see how that goes.

Q. The group has had a lot of scores, a little bit with very close games. Do you see, like, a Great Britain lose against Mexico 2-1? And you also see Great Britain lose 18-8 with Canada. You had difficulties with Great Britain, beat them 6-2. Is the United States able to win again? You guys won in 2017 with all these situations that I just talked about.

KYLE SCHWARBER: I think the biggest thing that we can do as a group is take it a day at a time. It's a new challenge every single day for what we're in front of. And obviously we had the first game with Great Britain.

And we were able to get those firsts out of the way, the first at-bats, the first playing with your country on the chest, the first game in the World Baseball Classic. Then go against atmosphere and you're in a great atmosphere. And they were able to go out there and win. We didn't have the game that we wanted to.

Then go out against Canada and kind of bounce back, have the game we want.

Those are all experiences for us that we can draw back on as we keep kind of moving throughout this thing. And I think the biggest thing for us is that we're going to try to take it a day at a time. And we're going to be ourselves and we want to play our type of baseball. And as we keep going forward we just have to take that every single day.

Q. Could you sense after the Canada game kind of like a collective exhale or anything just kind of seeing everybody break out and kind of putting together the team's first really dominant game of the tournament?

KYLE SCHWARBER: I wouldn't say it was an exhale. I think it was more just like, "That's what we're capable of" kind of thing. Baseball is such a weird game where you're going to have games like that Mexico game. And then you're going to have a game that you have against Canada where you break out. You could have a game where you're going to be grinding, kind of how we were against Great Britain there for a while.

It's just baseball. Heck, I was with the Phillies, we got home run -- we home run barraged them in Game 3. Then Game 4 we got no hit. It's just baseball.

And it's definitely confidence-building, though. We can use it as building steps and confidence for us as we keep moving forward. But I think it got us back to knowing what we can do and who we are.